I went to the library today, looking for some holiday reading. I wanted fantasy, good fantasy, that I hadn’t read before.

The back of every book I looked at seemed to have the same plot:

The kingdom of (somewhere) is in trouble. (someone) discovers they have special powers and must use these powers to save the kingdom.

The bookstores had the same. So I went to Amazon to try to buy something different. They had the same, plus some books about boys coming into their powers—Eldest (sequel to Christopher Paolini’s Eragon), and Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathon Stroud), lots of movie spinoffs and some urban fantasy.

I don’t mind any of these books individually when I’m in the mood, but I came away discontented today. Wasn’t there anything different? I wanted something I could pick up and say, “This sounds interesting.”

Worse, I flicked through the start pages of some of these books. They were all very ordinary. There was nothing in the first few pages of any of them that made me want to keep reading.

I think maybe my holiday reading should be writing, instead.

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One trend I did notice at the library—there’s a lot more science fiction. A lot of it is reprints too. They had a whole new set of Robert Heinlen in; brand new hardcovers, and lots of newish-looking books with rocket symbols. (Our library categorises their books with stickers. A deerstalker hat for crime fiction, a heart for romance, a dragon for fantasy and a rocket for science fiction.)

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31 Dec 2007: Three days later I go back to the library, having finished all the books I had chosen. I picked up ten books I wanted to read in about as many minutes. I think it’s just the mood you’re in at the time.

For most us, starting our novel is the easy part. 

An idea comes, or old ideas suddenly click together, and you start writing.  The first chapter or two is good.

I myself have dozens of novel beginnings that I have started and stopped.  Some of them are just waiting for time to complete them. Others are simply dead—sitting in the equivalent of my bottom drawer (the Ideas folder on my PC).  At what stage does one realise that these ideas have died?

Even though we write mostly as a team, Calder and I determine the novel rigor mortis factor a little differently.

Calder will write the first few pages and then hand them to me. It’s raw, unedited and very first draft. If I don’t like it she dices the idea then and there.  If I do, she keeps writing to see if it’s going to work. We know by around chapter three whether it’s working or not.

My criteria for liking or disliking the story are the characters, first and foremost, and whether or not the idea intrigues me.

As for me, I tend to write the first three chapters. By then I know if the story is or isn’t working for me. If it’s not working, it goes into the bottom drawer, Calder unseen. 

If it is working, I go back and do a rough first edit before I hand it over. If Calder likes it, we keep going.

Neither method is perfect—Calder had no say in Shared Memories, for example. I just couldn’t stop, and I would have written it anyway. Luckily she likes it. And some of Calder’s ideas that would make really good stories die an unnecessary early death, but that’s what the bottom drawer is for. We can alway revisit an idea.